Teacher fired for branding students with cross
Categories: Health & safety, In the news, Weird but true, Education, Religion & spirituality
It isn't uncommon these days to hear stories about teachers behaving badly in the classroom. I am a big believer in consequences and I am often left mind-boggled when these rogue teachers suffer none. Fortunately, this isn't one of those stories. Oh, we've got the bad teacher alright, but at least this one is no longer in charge of children.
John Freshwater, a science teacher at Mount Vernon Middle School in central Ohio, is accused of not only preaching his Christian beliefs in the classroom, but also of branding his students with a cross. As in using a high-frequency generator to burn the skin on the arms of kids. Freshwater doesn't exactly deny the charge, but claims he was just demonstrating how the generator thing worked and that the image was actually an "X", not a cross. I don't care if the image was Mickey Mouse, you don't burn the flesh of your students.
School board members agree and last week voted 5-0 to fire him. He is entitled to challenge the dismissal and his attorney says he intends to do so. But I just don't see how he could succeed in getting his job back considering the fact that there are actual photos of a child's branded arm. Not only that, district administrators say they've been dealing with complaints against Freshwater for at least half of his 21 year teaching career.
Of course this story isn't entirely without a mind-boggling aspect. Before firing Freshwater for intentionally injuring his students, school administrators tried to find him another position in the school. Fortunately for the kids in that district, he's not qualified to do anything else.
John Freshwater, a science teacher at Mount Vernon Middle School in central Ohio, is accused of not only preaching his Christian beliefs in the classroom, but also of branding his students with a cross. As in using a high-frequency generator to burn the skin on the arms of kids. Freshwater doesn't exactly deny the charge, but claims he was just demonstrating how the generator thing worked and that the image was actually an "X", not a cross. I don't care if the image was Mickey Mouse, you don't burn the flesh of your students.
School board members agree and last week voted 5-0 to fire him. He is entitled to challenge the dismissal and his attorney says he intends to do so. But I just don't see how he could succeed in getting his job back considering the fact that there are actual photos of a child's branded arm. Not only that, district administrators say they've been dealing with complaints against Freshwater for at least half of his 21 year teaching career.
Of course this story isn't entirely without a mind-boggling aspect. Before firing Freshwater for intentionally injuring his students, school administrators tried to find him another position in the school. Fortunately for the kids in that district, he's not qualified to do anything else.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
eugene 6-27-2008 @ 2:07PM
Why wasn't this religious nut job thrown in jail?
This story just re-affirms my opinion of so-called christians who try to push their religious views on the rest of us.
Reply
pbhj 6-27-2008 @ 6:59PM
Nothing like a good old fashioned witch hunt, eh?
So people disapprove of this guys beliefs. One day he asks the class for a volunteer to demonstrate radiant heat transfer. The volunteer gets a small mark (totally photoshopped AP photo's btw) which looks vaguely cross shaped. Parents who don't like teacher accuse him in press of "branding children with a cross".
Stick to the product recalls Sandy Maple and keep your bigotry to yourself.
Reply
Sandy Maple 6-27-2008 @ 7:18PM
Are you kidding me? I am intolerant of intentional child-burning and that makes me a bigot?
eugene 6-28-2008 @ 6:10AM
Silly Sandy, don't you know hurting kids is the latest thing when it comes to education? Why in chemistry class, they show the harmful effects of acids by throwing it the kid's eyes. Teaching by demonstration, it's great and you're obviously just not hip enough to get with it.
But hey, what can you expect from a godless science thinking aethiest type? After all, you people don't believe in God, so you don't believe in the afterlife and so it's all about now with you people, right? All about be healthy, don't destroy the environment, don't brand my children with your religious symbols. If only were baptised, then you would know that our bodies were created by god and that branding our children is the way to please him.
pbhj 6-29-2008 @ 12:20PM
No, the point was he didn't "brand the kid with a cross". It wasn't a wise move but it wasn't part of religiously motivated campaign to emblazon children with a cross. It's the lack of any journalism in the post - I was foolish enough to have begun believing that blogging was journalism, especially when sponsored by AOL.
pbhj 6-29-2008 @ 12:44PM
... and to eugene, there's a great difference between an accident and act of stupidity brought about through some sort of religious volition.
The point of our bodies being a temple for the Holy Spirit is that we should look after them. Branding would be pretty much contrary to this (though the only relevant text is a Levitcan injunction against tattooing) as is anything that doesn't honour the body. Obesity would be a good example.
Teaching should be hands-on. If we had some non-photoshopped images and a report from someone who could see past the fact that this guy was a Christian and report on what actually happened that would be great. Perhaps it was assault, but hyperbole about him branding people is not going to help us establish that.
Incidentally if they were "science thinking" (with respect to deism) they'd be agnostic. Is Sandy godless? She may be a Muslim/Hindu or a member of any number of deistic religions or simply a believer in a god and not a member of any religion. Anti-Christian sentiment isn't the reserve of atheists.
Reply
B 8-19-2008 @ 10:40PM
wow ha ha ha ... teacher hurts kid, kid complains... parents go in an uproar... media gets involved... suddenly the story is so twisted no one remembers what really happened...
yet EVERYONE knows enough to argue the 'facts' as they are 'sure' they have the real truth.
yadda yadda yadda.
Reply